Memphis Run

Chapter Sixteen

The pair of Hounds reacted to General Thayer’s order to kill the Warrior according to their training; predictably, they attempted to unsling their AR-15’s.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was already in motion. He wanted to dispatch the duo and retrieve his katana from the Spartan expeditiously and quietly. Any shots would undoubtedly draw more Hounds to the scene. He needed to render the pair unconscious before they could fire, and accordingly he sprang forward as they began to unsling their rifles, releasing the AR-15 he was carrying. He took two strides and leaped into the air, his fists clenched in the Oriental manner, his right leg tucked tight, his left extended.

“Lookou—” the Hound on the right started to yell.

Rikki’s left foot connected with the Hound’s sternum and sent the man sailing backwards to crash into the general. The Warrior landed lightly as the officer and the private tumbled down the stairs in a tangle of arms and legs.

To the left the second guard was trying to level his AR-15.

Rikki pivoted, sliding in toward the Hound, shifting his balance onto his left leg and cocking his right at a 45-degree angle. He executed a side-thrust kick, using his thigh to maximize the power in his blow, twisting at the waist as he made contact.

The second Hound was struck in the ribs. There was a distinct crack and he doubled over, dropping his rifle.

With his right hand clenched in the Tettsui, the iron-hammer fist, Rikki smashed the Hound on the right temple.

Uttering a nasal wheeze, the man sprawled onto the floor.

Eight steps below, the general and the private were in the act of disengaging and getting to their feet. Thayer was on his knees, his right hand on the katana hilt. The Hound had lost his AR-15, which had clattered several steps lower.

Rikki took the stairs three at a time. His second spring brought him to the rising guard, his right knee flicking as he kicked the private full in the face.

The Hound went flying, crunching onto his head six steps below and lying still.

Rikki came down on his toes two steps lower than the Spartan. He whirled.

“I always said you were good,” General Thayer remarked. He stood in a crouch, the katana clenched in his brawny hands.

“I want my katana,” Rikki said.

“I intend to give it to you,” Thayer replied, grinning. “Edge first.”

Rikki assumed the Fudo-tachi, the ready stance. “I have no desire to harm you.”

“You’re putting the cart before the horse,” Thayer responded. “I said you were good. I’m better.”

“This will prove nothing.”

“Not for you maybe.”

“You can leave in peace.”

General Thayer’s lips curled downward. “What is this? Sympathy?”

“Call it the respect due one warrior from another,” Rikki said.

Thayer smiled. “I appreciate the compliment. I wish we had met under different circumstances.”

“I feel the same way,” Rikki acknowledged.

The Spartan shrugged. “Such is life.”

“We don’t need to do this,” Rikki stressed.

“I’m afraid we do.”

“Is dying for a madman a fitting rite of passage for men such as us?”

Rikki inquired.

“I have my duty.”

“And I have mine.”

General Thayer straightened. “Then there’s nothing more to be said.”

“I guess not,” Rikki said with a tinge of melancholy in his tone.

Thayer bowed slightly. “I salute you,” he stated, and as he rose he slashed viciously at the Warrior’s neck.

Almost taken unawares, Rikki barely evaded the swipe of the gleaming sword. He wrenched his body backwards and saw the blade come within a hair’s breath of his throat, then allowed his momentum to carry him from the step. On the stairs the Spartan had the advantage. Rikki wanted room to maneuver, to employ his legs. He landed two steps lower, and without breaking stride vaulted even lower.

General Thayer was determined not to be denied. He dashed after the bounding Warrior, swinging the katana again and again, repeatedly missing by less than an inch. His left foot slipped on an object blocking one of the steps, and he looked down in time to avoid tripping over the corpse of the private with the split skull.

Rikki gained a few feet on his pursuer, covering four steps at a leap and reaching the bottom of the stairs in three jumps. He raced along the corridor, searching for anything he could utilize as a weapon.

General Thayer was hot on the Warrior’s heels.

Midway along the hall Rikki risked a glance over his right shoulder. The Spartan was six feet behind him, the katana spearing toward his back. His facile mind instantaneously recognized an unorthodox opening, and with the recognition came simultaneous execution. He abruptly dropped, flattening on the tile, his body across the hall, resting on his hands and toes.

The Spartan was unable to check his headlong advance.

His boots caught on the Warrior’s form and he lost his balance, toppling over, deliberately adding to the force of the fall by hurling himself even farther, putting more distance between them.

Rikki had expected to rise swiftly and render Thayer unconscious while the Spartan was sprawled on the floor. Instead, he saw the officer slide and roll and heave erect before he could reach him.

Thayer held the katana at the ready position and grinned. “Nice move.

You almost had me.”

“It would have sufficed for most.”

“I told you I was trained by the best. Spartans are bred for combat.”

“So are Warriors.”

General Thayer cocked his head and studied his adversary. “You say that word as if it’s a title of some kind.”

“It is.”

The Spartan’s eyes widened. “The Warriors! Of course!”

“You’ve heard of us?” Rikki asked.

“Yes,” Thayer said. “But I never made the connection until right now.

Four or five years ago everyone was talking about the defeat of the Civilized Zone at the hands of a small band of fighters called Warriors.

You’re one of them?”

“I am.”

“I should have realized the Warriors were involved in the Leather Knight incident. It explains a lot.”

“You’ve heard of us,” Rikki observed. “Why is it that we’ve never heard of the Spartans?”

“They like to keep to themselves. Sparta was built shortly after the war in an isolated valley by a survivalist with a penchant for Spartan history.”

“Where is the valley located?”

“There you go again,” General Thayer muttered. “Enough talk. Warrior.

Let’s finish this.”

“Must we?”

“Yes,” Thayer hissed, and lunged, swinging the katana at the Warrior’s head.

Rikki backpedaled, then sidestepped as the Spartan tried to impale his stomach. He delivered a palm-heel thrust to the Spartan’s body above the spleen.

Thayer grunted and retreated several steps, keeping his back to the opposite wall.

Still seeking room to maneuver, Rikki ran down the corridor toward the cell at the end, the same cell he’d vacated a short while ago. He saw the open cell door and the two bodies on the floor, and he also saw a pistol strapped around one of the prone pair.

General Thayer was pounding in pursuit.

Rikki poured on the speed, and when he arrived at the cell he had a five yard lead. In a flash he was at the Hound’s side, drawing the pistol from the holster and whirling.

Thayer halted in the doorway, both hands on the katana, both eyes on the pistol.

“Don’t even think it,” Rikki said.

The Spartan hesitated.

“Place my katana at your feet,” Rikki directed.

General Thayer frowned as he lowered the sword to the floor.

“Step back,” Rikki instructed, wagging the pistol. “Away from the katana.”

Thayer reluctantly complied, taking four giant strides, his arms in the air.

Rikki walked to the katana and looked down at his cherished blade.

“Finish me!” General Thayer snapped.

“Are you in a hurry to die?” Rikki inquired, looking up.

“I have failed Aloysius, just as I failed my king in Sparta,” Thayer said.

“My disgrace has been doubly compounded. Finish me and end my misery.”

“I will not shoot you in cold blood.”

“And I will not allow you to pass me alive,” Thayer declared.

Rikki peered at the Spartan for several seconds, gazed at his katana, then glanced at the pistol in his right hand. He deposited the pistol alongside the katana.

Thayer’s mouth slackened. “What—?”

Straightening, Rikki adopted the cat stance.

Profound amazement rippled across the Spartan’s visage. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Whenever you are ready,” Rikki said.

The general’s brow knit in confusion. “Why?” he asked plaintively.

Rikki’s belated response was laconic, yet eloquently precise. “Because we are who we are.”

Thayer nodded slowly, then dropped into the horse stance. “I should warn you. Spartans are taught martial combat before they are weaned.”

“Really?” Rikki responded with a grin. “Warriors are instructed in the martial arts in the womb. We save time that way.”

A hearty laugh burst from the Spartan’s lips. He raised his hands and slid forward. “I shall regret slaying you, and I’ve never regretted killing anyone before.”

“Now who is putting the cart before the horse?”

Thayer closed cautiously, and when he was within a yard of the Warrior he unleashed a flurry of hand and foot strikes, any one of which would have incapacitated an ordinary adversary.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was not ordinary. He blocked and adroitly countered every blow, holding his ground, his stoic expression inscrutable, displaying his supreme mastery of diverse forms and styles. Karate. Kung Fu. Aikido. Judo. Jujitsu. He never gave an inch, withstanding the Spartan’s onslaught as immovably as a firmly rooted tree would resist a raging storm.

Sweat was beading Thayer’s brow when he unexpectedly stepped back and smiled. “This won’t be as easy as I thought.”

Rikki slid forward in a low stance, his hands and arms resembling cranes poised to smite a fish.

General Thayer inched to the rear, maintaining a defensive posture, his eyes narrowing.

To disconcert his opponent, Rikki shifted from the crane to the tiger form, from the tiger to the dragon, and from the dragon to the snake, each movement fluid and balletic. He was two feet from his taller foe, waiting for an opening to present itself. As he glided his right foot closer to the Spartan, Thayer committed a blunder.

The general attempted to snap-kick the Warrior’s right knee.

Rikki easily moved his right leg to the left, and as Thayer’s boot cleaved the air, he struck, aiming a leopard-paw blow at the officer’s midsection.

Thayer deflected Rikki’s arm with an outside circling block, then drove his right fist at the Warrior’s solar plexus. Rikki’s right arm flashed in a cutting forearm block, his feet shifting to the right as he performed a horizontal elbow strike to Thayer’s chest.

Staggered by the jarring pain, Thayer inadvertently stumbled backwards, then recovered promptly.

Rikki came again.

Thayer, resolved to stand firm, met the Warrior head-on.

Minutes elapsed.

The corridor was filled with the muted smacks, cuffs, and thumps of their rain of blows. Their shadows seemed to be entwined in a macabre dance on the walls. Hands and feet clashed, countered, and clashed again.

The progress of their combat drew them farther and farther from the cell, until they were within three yards of the stairs once more.

Rikki sustained two agonizing hits, one to the left side of his neck, the other to his right leg below the knee.

Hoping to put an end to the conflict, and annoyed at himself for not killing the Warrior sooner, Thayer became less careful as he pressed the Warrior. He glowered as he fought, his ferocity mounting.

Rikki counterstruck every blow, operating on sheer instinct, his arms and legs functioning in an automatic, conditioned reflex, the result of years spent honing his skills in practice and in battle. During the course of their savage exchange, he landed four blows to the Spartan’s nerve centers and vital points, yet Thayer managed to shrug off every one and continue fighting. They appeared to be evenly matched, and the outcome was in definite doubt. Rikki slowed slightly, hoping to convey the misimpression he was tiring.

Thayer took the bait. Sensing victory, he slashed his right hand at the Warrior’s neck, but had to settle for a glancing blow off Rikki’s collarbone as the wiry martial artist leaned back.

At that moment, as the officer’s right arm was extended to the side.

Rikki knifed his right hand up and in. his fingers rigid as steel, into Thayer’s ribs. The Spartan gasped and tried to escape to the rear, but Rikki was on him with the speed of a swooping eagle. The Warrior’s right hand arced into Thayer’s cardiac notch, the area below the left breast, sinking in to the knuckles.

General Thayer grunted and stiffened. He tottered backwards, his features contorted in overwhelming torment. With an effort, he focused on the Warrior, and his look of anguish was replaced by shocked consternation. Shaking his head, his lips moving noiselessly, he sank to his knees.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi draped his arms at his sides and bowed. A frown curled his mouth as he straightened, and he inhaled deeply before speaking. “You were one of the best I’ve encountered.”

Thayer appeared to be on the verge of tears. He nodded once, then croaked four words. “Tell the Spartans I…”

Rikki saw the life flicker from the officers eyes, and he watched in silence as Thayer sank to the tile. For over a minute he stared at Thayer’s face, and his voice was uncharacteristically choked with emotion when he finally responded. “I will tell them,” he promised.

Footsteps sounded at the top of the stairs.

Rikki spun and retraced his steps to the cell. He leaned over and reclaimed his katana, then turned.

A sole Hound was descending the last few steps, his startled gaze on the general’s body. He was armed with a pistol in a flapped holster on his right hip, and he reached for the gun as he saw the small man in black rushing toward him.

“You killed them—” the Hound blurted out.

Rikki was on the man as the pistol was being leveled. His katana whipped in a glistening swing, the razor edge cleaving the Hound’s wrist before the trigger finger could tighten on the trigger. The private opened his mouth to scream, but the best he could do was gurgle as the katana slit his throat from ear to ear. Blood spurted everywhere. The Hound reeled toward the stairs, collapsing after two paces. Rikki walked past him, beginning to climb the steps. He looked back once at the Hound’s stupefied visage.

“Never belabor the obvious.”